I can't help you if you don't even understand the scale of renewability of resources such as oil and gas, the ratio of energy extracted to energy put into the various kinds of machines that produce what we need to keep our energy consumption up, the limits to energy extraction for solar power, the lack of predictability and controllability of energy sources other than gas-oil-coal-nuclear, and the CO2-related effects on the atmosphere for the first three out of those four, the depletion of current controllable energy sources, and the energy available in the various kinds of uranium-plutonium-thorium isotopes which lead to the different kinds of nuclear power plants. Amongst other things which take hours of actually trying to wrap your head around the problem instead of putting your fingers in your ears and screaming bloody murder.
Because apparently you seem to believe that "there is absolutely no 'physics'" in all of this.
edit: as a side-note, take a look at all the countries that have increased their renewables energy consumption and show me that it corresponds to a decrease in production and investments of {oil or gas or coal or nuclear}, i.e. controllable energy sources. You will soon see that the sources that cannot be predicted in a way that ensures your fridge continuously works and you can take a hot shower at all hours of the day are only secondary sources that people are happy to have (and renewables are a great thing to invest in) but that in itself is not enough - unless, again, one accepts that their patterns of behaviour and consumption would change drastically, which is only one of the many possible discussions around the evolution of our societies that you seem to be so anxious to sweep under the rug.
You can't "help" me understand your claim because it is baldly false!
There's an entire field that models different grids and transitioning to carbon free energy. Using fine-grained weather patterns, they optimize for various factors such as cost, by timing out deployments of renewable resources, nuclear, transmission, storage, etc. using projected costs over the next few decades.
There are huge fights in the field, particularly over nuclear, but nobody, literally nobody has said it's impossible. The debate is how much cheaper nuclear energy will make the energy transition.
So if there's some sort of "physics" that precludes the possibility of what people have already made detailed plans for, you should probably publish that result. But it seems unlikely that you have found something they haven't.
Response to your edit: you are shifting the point, without bothering to back up your initial claim. Nonetheless, you are shifting to a new false claim, that "renewables don't decrease carbon output. This is also clearly false:
The term that is used in the industry isn't "controllable," but rather "dispatchable" energy source. Europe is showing that we can get awfully close to 50% renewable, non-dispatchable energy, without really any storage and reduce carbon output. Storage, demand response, and increased transmission will likely close the rest of the gap.
I'm not even sure what fight you're trying to pick here, because I'm all for renewables and energy. It's painfully obvious that no, renewables alone do not have the ability to cover at a low-CO2 footprint and continuous usage the energy needs that we currently have and that are, even with reduction of consumption in richer countries, bound to grow on the whole as population follows the models that indicate about 9 billion people being alive before things potentially slope downwards.
It's also not a bad idea at all to be investing seriously into renewables because despite the CO2 footprint related to the creation and maintenance of those sources, from a climate perspective it's the right bet in the long run.
But the energy density that you can extract from sources that are inherently at the mercy of a climate that changes are consequently limited and unpredictable (reminder that we are not fully able to predict it - unless you have the magical key to tell us with certainty whether we're really seeing a RCP2.6, a RCP4.5, a RCP8.5, or really any better model), the same sources that by the way aren't scale-able to many places on earth. You don't really bet on wind in the same places and ways you bet on solar for example, since population centers will limit the scale of your operations and weather patterns will limit the scope of what you can extract and CLIMATE CHANGE will change those patterns.
You might want to re-assess why is it that you are seemingly so emotionally invested in saying no to the only technique that has an extremely low death count per TWh, can be adapted to most places on Earth, and has an incredibly high and long-lasting ability to power countries.
My "fight" is that you have now made two plainly false claims: 1) physics precudes renewables from providing our energy needs. This is just a silly claim. There are no such "physics" and if you think that "energy density" stops this from happening, you clearly haven't run any numbers.
2) Renewables aren't reducing carbon output. This is also incredibly bizarre.
> You might want to re-assess why is it that you are seemingly so emotionally invested in saying no to the only technique that has an extremely low death count per TWh
I'm not saying no to nuclear. I'm saying "no" to ascientific claims about "physics" and "energy density."
I'm making the claim because it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time. And at all times, due to unpredictability, there is no chance at all that the source is controllable. Therefore, unless and until we have much much MUCH better ways to store energy (which would be absolutely fantastic), we cannot count on renewables alone.
As for the second thing I did not claim that, I said that renewables have a CO2 footprint that isn't negligible due to their construction and maintenance (and again, I'm all for renewables - I'm just not lying to myself about renewables solving all the worlds problems)
And I don't understand what you're on about when it comes to energy density. If you haven't understood the following you're just deluding yourself: the quantity of materials (i.e. what comes into making a solar panel or windmill or a power plant) and the volume of the transformation sources (i.e. how much space you need for your windmills and solar panels and nuclear power plants) AND the possibility to leverage the energy (i.e. where you can put your mills, panels, or plants) are all overwhelmingly in favour of nuclear.
So we should absolutely turn towards renewables, but if you think for one minute that the oil+gas+coal could be dropped for solar panels and mills without actually being carried by the sheer energy output of nuclear, you haven't quite taken a look at the numbers enough.
He's right, and you are grossly overestimating your level of clue. You do not understand the degree to which you do not understand. Dunning-Kruger says hi.
I suggest you try to fully flesh out your supposed argument, with as much self-skepticism as you can muster. Your enemy is your tendency to motivated reasoning, where you stop thinking when you get a conclusion you like. The symptom of this is that you present half-baked nonsense, which as he told you is easily debunked (or so vague as to not even need debunking.)
First, let's get back to the very beginning: my first message gave an explanation to what was pure antagonizing of the "pro-nuclear" people, and I mentioned that it's based on physics (which it is).
You're stating a "he's right you're wrong" with an unsubstantiated singular paragraph while I've been giving dozens of elements of reflection over a half dozen posts. That's a bit rich, isn't it?
You want something to substantiate a decent amount of what I'm saying? Here's one part[1].
Here's a case for why nuclear is the actual bridge for renewables[2]. Here's why renewables can't save the planet[3]. Reasons for environmentalists to look at nuclear[4].
And if you happen to care enough to actually read full reports, the IPCC did a lot of work and it's always good to try to read their reports with an open mind to collate the data[5].
Let's go through go through those links and see if they support your claim that "it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time".
[1] No, that doesn't support your claim (and it's from 2007, an aeon ago in the renewable field). In fact, that abstract says "The negative effects on health of electricity generation from renewable sources have not been assessed as fully as those from conventional sources, but for solar, wind, and wave power, such effects seem to be small"
[2] That states "As a corollary, nuclear energy also occupies significantly less space / land than renewables (several hundred times less in fact)." But that doesn't mean the land area required by renewables makes renewables infeasible. And it also ignores the distribution network needed for nuclear; if that is included, the ratio of land areas needed is much smaller.
He also says "the debate is not about building new nuclear power plants but to retain the remaining ones for as long as possible." So that link doesn't supply justification for building new nuclear plants. I can accept that CO2 taxes (for example) would enable existing nuclear plants to keep operating, at least for a while.
[3,4] Ah, Shellenberger. He was the guy who was claiming PV was dirty because it used rare earth elements from China (spoiler: that's a lie). He fails to make any quantitative argument that land area or other inputs for renewables render it infeasible. And he repeats the tired nonsense about Germany having high energy costs because of renewables (as if that somehow justifies the doublethink that installing much more expensive sources would have led to lower costs.)
[5] And yet more irrelevancy.
Look, if you actually had a cogent argument to support your claim, you could have pointed to a real detailed argument supporting it. But it was bullshit all along, and you know that, so you spewed out a Gish Gallop of irrelevancy. And indeed, how could it have been otherwise? Your claim requires that all possible configurations of renewables, all possible configurations and types of storage, and all possible configurations of energy using activities cannot work. And how could you POSSIBLY establish that? You could have claimed there's a lot of work to be done, and that it's not CERTAIN that renewables could do the job, and for that reason nuclear should be kept alive as an option. But that's not what you were arguing.
[1] Aeons ago means litteraly nothing. You can contemplate gradual improvements to the EROI, but they don't change by an order of magnitude despite the metric truckton of money we've been throwing at the problem. The order of magnitude does not change, the output doesn't really significantly shift either.
[2] Land area occupied by renewables doesn't make it INFEASIBLE, can you stop putting it words into my mouth I did not say? Did you not read the literal dozens of times I've mentioned renewables are worth developing and using? Do you understand that when I compare one with the other, this is not a XOR but an OR and I am talking about orders of magnitude and controllability therefore what actually matters for the bigger immediate changes? Or do you want to wilfully continue to ignore that I've said that about ten times now and dance the same dance again and again?
It's not infeasible, it's merely on average impractical. That is, you need to identify the narrow areas where the installation offsets the CO2 output of the construction + materials + maintenance bill. Yes it does improve, and yes that ROI improves significantly too. Did you read my sentence right now? I don't want you to say again the same damn things, I'm just checking you even read the messages.
But no, the solar output is not what will allow you to keep your fridge running and your shower hot at all times. If you want to sell me the idea of not having power at all time I'm genuinely OPEN to it, but then actually have the sincerity of shifting the debate to something meaningful rather than the same points over and over again.
[3,4] Ad hominem, and you also happen to miss that yes a majority of PV as it stands does not use the awesome research that avoids using involving a decent amount of mining (and that research didn't come for free btw, and that could have paid for next-generation nuclear research for which the current generation already beats by far photovoltaic). So sure, handwave away.
[5 and not 6] So you ignore the IPCC reports? TL;DR am I right? I have nothing more to say to you.
EROI of renewables is just fine, and getting even better. Attempts to argue it's not have been thoroughly debunked.
About land area: you said this "I'm making the claim because it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time." If land area (which I assume is what you meant by "surface" there) isn't a showstopper, why did you list it? But thanks for admitting now that it isn't a showstopper. I consider the point conceded and that part of your claim retracted.
> Ad hominem
Argument from authority can be met by impeaching the credibility of the authority.
> So you ignore the IPCC reports?
Show me in the IPCC report where it supports your claim "it is painfully obvious that unless you're making calculations about spherical cows there's nowhere near enough resources, surface, and specifically predictability to have renewables be more than marginal for a long time." I'll wait.
There is enough surface to put PV panels in many places, and the reason why I don't just say land is because enthusiasts will also consider rooftops (which aren't optimal in terms of tech and output as you surely know - the significant farms do require requisitioning actual land and it isn't insignificant in itself[0]). But there isn't enough surface for PV to preclude the usage of nuclear, which is what I've been saying all along. Reminder for the n-th time that it's not a XOR when it comes to using all the sources alternatives to fossil fuels, it's an OR in many places and an AND in some. I've been saying repeatedly that the OR wins in favour of nuclear for energy throughput, not that the OR precludes from having them and there isn't and AND in other places.
You haven't impeached anything by saying he lied about rare minerals, since earlier generations of PV did require those. You just brushed off the person because it's harder to brush off the argument.
The IPCC reports (btw if you had read the page you'd see the 2020 one is inbound so you've got to use the previous ones) have over decades highlighted the unpredictability of changes regarding habitability of places (i.e. typically related to RCP scenarios) and changes in weather patterns. The very same things that I've been mentioning multiple times as being factors that influence the ability to have steady renewables.
Let's take a look at that one[1] ("aeons ago" to you, as if the world magically changed since).
P5 Changes in atmospheric concentrations of greenhousegases (GHGs) and aerosols, land cover and solar radiation al-ter the energy balance of the climate system.
P13 phenomenon and directions of trends, just take the most likely ones and explain to me how your PV panels will handle those better than a nuclear power plant where the power production gives no qualms about rain, cloud cover and temperature (since they're literally built to handle terrorist attacks)
P13 again "Anthropogenic warming could lead to some impactsthat are abrupt or irreversible, depending upon the rateand magnitude of the climate change.", please do enlighten me about how well you can predict that your PVs are going to give you any steady power output at any given location over the duration of their existence
The rest of the IPCC reports tend to indicate shifts in patterns that we can barely predict, yet somehow again you feel entirely comfortable without a proof that PV can stand the changes in {cloud cover, fires (how's it holding up for the PV in California these days huh?), weather patterns, changes in irradiation, maintenance cost[note to not install them in deserts[5]]}.
It also hasn't escaped your mind that in a decent part of the world on the RCP scenarios we're headed towards we will encounter increasing amounts of deadly days - making those lands practically not habitable (and surprise surprise, those places happen to be exactly where sunlight would be most intense)[2]. Side note: climate refugees will go to places where infrastructures are, and those power needs will therefore increase. This is a time where the combination of nuclear and renewables can be a fantastic thing, but once again you're daydreaming if you think that solar (and wind) can carry that without nuclear.
Again, you ought to know that I have not once said that PV shouldn't be developed, but that I have said multiple times that nuclear is what enables steady controllability and necessary power output at metrics comparable to current days energy needs. You've been keen on trying to find a fault in every single sentence I've said without ever trying to refute that, why is it you think? Perhaps because you also acknowledge that very same thing? There's no point in you trying to advocate for solar using that same report because I AM ON BOARD.
However you bring forward literally nothing that shows that PV is controllable (as it is not and that is basically its biggest problem[2] - and yes that's physics and not spherical cows), that PV+storage isn't a smoke screen (quite literally - it reduces the fossil-fuel related emissions by 6 but is about 20 times more than nuclear due to the storage). I'll also stop waiting on a real refutal of [4](yes, again) because apparently anything that upsets you isn't worth proving wrong.
So yes, physics about spherical cows (i.e. imagining you get the solar output you design your farm for at any fraction in steady way without being forced to move, with a magically predictable climate and weather, and without involving more CO2 emissions for both moving the infrastructure - new land usage - as well as the significant waste due to the panels change that comes in within a couple decades), that physics about spherical cows does not hold up.
Solar (and wind) will be formidable sources to support a world that goes without fossil fuels, and in some localized spots it can even be the key element. For the world, it won't be nearly enough.
And if you are happy handwaving it all away, just do your own parallel benefit-to-cost analysis[6] then.
And I'll pre-emptively add that I've mentioned about 3 or 4 times already that there's a scenario that involves the possibility of exclusively banking on renewables, and that scenario is the de-growth mentioned in my very first post too. It is entirely possible to go there (and in fact, it is where we're bound for ultimately from a purely physics-based understanding of fossil fuel depletion, which includes uranium and therefore nuclear ending too).
So the real question actually will be one of consumption (of goods and energy), and if we're willing to ask and answer that question before we reach critically low levels (so at an absolute stretch within about 2 centuries) then we will be in a position to totally live off of energy sources that we can approximate as infinite (much more robustly so than what we did with fossil fuels, since the sun and wind for all intents and purposes would not go before we do).
You don't know how to bloody read. Claiming renewables emit CO2 in their construction and maintenance is not saying that they don't decrease emissions in comparison to gas-oil-coal, only that they do produce emissions. Unless you want to state that for a fact renewables are leading to no emissions for their construction or maintenance, you can't possibly be denying that. And by the way nuclear involves CO2 emissions too in its construction, surprise surprise! But you build it once and run it for a very long time, and the emissions in relationship to the energy output for nuclear completely dwarf anything related to renewables. So stop trying to argue an empty point.
Now, there's no such thing as "dispatchable" without a carbon cost that is non-negligible: the things you build, if you move them you're using trucks that use energy. If you take the windmills down from off the coast where the wind is stronger, you're using boats that use energy. If you need to use tools and to build any kind of structure for things to be installed anywhere new, including extensions to power grids, you're using materials for which the construction requires yet again energy and materials. Oh and now because we don't know on what scenario we are, weather patterns have changed significantly enough over the course of a few decades so you need to start moving your infrastructure to the "right" place, which includes building the damn road there and potentially moving people away too. You can "dispatch" all you want by emitting a ton of unnecessary CO2, or you can go and develop the source that is most reliable, actually controllable, and that only needs those emissions to be made ONCE to become a source of energy.
Stop daydreaming about things that are only marginally doing something, and put your energy into addressing problems at the order of magnitude where you have the real impact. For energy production it's nuclear by a huge margin, and yes that's what the damn physics says. Then move on to the other actual problems that lead to CO2 emissions, and work on those too. Stop trying to fix a problem that already has a solution - especially if your fixes involve a whole lot more repetitive CO2 emissions along the way.
In a world that has transitioned to no fossil fuels, how would renewables be emitting CO2? They wouldn't.
In a world transitioning away from fossil fuels, the metric is not how much CO2 renewables use to build, but how much CO2 they displace per $. Renewables, being cheaper than nuclear, allow more CO2 to be displaced more quickly.
There's not a single metric to take but many, first of all.
The initial cost in CO2 is absolutely part of the measurement, but if you want to look at finer metrics then you can look at the ratio of estimated CO2 costs over the life of the source over the energy produced too, which gives you good hints as to what requires a lot of emissions to get a lot of energy (which is really what we're trying to curb in the first place). From that metric for example, photovoltaic energy is orders of magnitude worse than nuclear and wind (wind without storage: a dozen grams per KWh, nuclear: a dozen grams per KWh, photovoltaic: between 100g and 200g of CO2 emission per KWh, and beyond if you were to count the batteries). The ROI on the other hand definitely got much better for photovoltaic over the years, and AGAIN AGAIN AGAIN this is why I have not been saying once in all those messages that renewables should be dropped and all the research on it dumped. We CAN make things better, and we WILL benefit from having such extra sources - especially as we learn to extract more and more energy from the same sources.
I'll refer to my response to your other message for multiple sources of why that is not enough.
And, actually, in a zero fossil fuel world, solar is going to be better (at CO2 production) than nuclear, since you can build solar fields with no concrete. Concrete manufacture produces CO2 even if entirely non-fossil energy is used.
Renewables are emitting CO2 in their making AND in their maintenance AND when they need to migrate due to climate patterns being unpredictable, and I mentioned that again in another post.
In a world transitioning away from fossil fuels, that world has to transition pretty damn fast from fossil fuels and renewables do not bridge the gap AND do not handle controllability. You never actually mention any solution at all despite the now dozen things I've mentioned about this, and you know full well that (1) your precious means to get energy will cost in their making AND the moving as climate evolves, and (2) the unsteady nature of their output REQUIRES having a controllable source in parallel which DOES NOT make the fossil fuel usage go down UNLESS we use nuclear. And the alternative is that we would simply have de-growth, CONFER the damn original post. I am not taking a stance about that, I am simply stating what AGAIN the damn physics lays out in front of your eyes. It's not my fault if you don't want to read IPCC reports.
I am sick and tired of your unsourced rants that aren't trying to bring any useful argument to the table, and I'll leave it at that. If you want to keep putting your blinders on and think that the sun is almighty, all the power to you. You're lying to yourself and this can cost more than you realize.
"Intermittency angst" is a classic pro nuclear, anti renewable propaganda strategy which is overused to the point it becomes boring. At some point the only reasonable answer is to just roll your eyes. Ok, so lets say renewables was the worst bet all along because storage is impossible. Renewables will only generate 80% of all electricity then. We'll have to use some gas to cover the rest. Would you consider this to be a failure, even if it's cheaper than nuclear? Your fridge isn't going to stop working continuously. It's a strawman. It was never on the negotiation table in the first place.
I would consider it a failure to use a crapton of non-renewables to get to the point where we have unreliable, un-controllable renewables, which continue creating CO2 emissions due to how badly we store energy and in the best of cases still create more risks to lives and the ecosystem through hydro, than nuclear (I'll get to that further down). All that, when you have a perfectly fine self-stopping mechanism that produces orders of magnitude more energy at a controllable rate that could be built in one place rather than "arranged" to be moved (CO2 emissions again) whenever the weather patterns change.
Again this is absolutely bonkers that people would start thinking that being pragmatically for nuclear is being against renewables, because I AM NOT. I am entirely for the investment into research and development around renewables, I am entirely for the replacement of as much of the coal used by renewables, I entirely for a world where we would benefit greatly from renewables. But stop mistaking nuclear for oil on your self-inflicted side of things, because nuclear CAN carry this transition without continuing to wreck the environment, and oil-gas-coal could do that while entirely messing it up, but renewables alone absolutely cannot.
And by the way I have no problem with intermittency of access to power, I am actually open to the idea. But why try to sell that idea to everyone when they don't actually have to compromise on their consumption if nuclear carries the production? Instead of calling it a day by saying that it's an "intermittency angst", have empathy for those who would indeed be worried about it and find SOLID arguments to explain why you seem to know that it's either not a problem or that it is a problem worth living with (or in the case of energy availability, without).
For what it's worth, here's the combined 17-countries European output of wind power at a resolution of about a day on the scale of about a year in 2017[0]. Tell me how that fits nicely with the high constant consumption of any given country, and how you'll install enough of these in places where you get a relative 10-100x more power (i.e. offshore) without having to fight people, and tell me how you'd do that without tremendous energy and material consumption in the making. And then tell me how sea currents aren't likely to change due to climate change and make your efforts moot at an unpredictable rate[1][2] for not just wind but solar too.
AGAIN, as in EVERY response I made, I am pro-renewables. I'm also pragmatic about their role in addressing the immediate issues with CO2 emissions and what physics will pragmatically allow us to reliably extract from them at the level of the world. Local initiatives to develop something around an area that steadily produces renewable energy and is robust against unpredictable weather pattern changes AND doesn't cost an arm and a leg (without the emotional investments of VCs lowering the $$$ needed) AND does not create substantial CO2 emissions during the lifetime of the product, I'm 1000% for that.
For the maintainable, long-term, high-output power, it's called nuclear and it has led to an order of magnitude less deaths of ecosystems and people in the world, even when including the headlines-making Fukushima and Chernobyl, than just about one or two dams failing in Europe the same century. For a power output that is significant enough that it can offset the gigantic energy density that oil and gas offered the world for its development during the last ~200 years, without creating more CO2 after its construction and without having to move every time the wind changes yet again.
Because apparently you seem to believe that "there is absolutely no 'physics'" in all of this.
edit: as a side-note, take a look at all the countries that have increased their renewables energy consumption and show me that it corresponds to a decrease in production and investments of {oil or gas or coal or nuclear}, i.e. controllable energy sources. You will soon see that the sources that cannot be predicted in a way that ensures your fridge continuously works and you can take a hot shower at all hours of the day are only secondary sources that people are happy to have (and renewables are a great thing to invest in) but that in itself is not enough - unless, again, one accepts that their patterns of behaviour and consumption would change drastically, which is only one of the many possible discussions around the evolution of our societies that you seem to be so anxious to sweep under the rug.